LONG VOYAGES

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 35, 10 August 1921, Page 14

LONG VOYAGES

EXTRAORDINAEY CASES.

It was announced on 10th June, states a writer in the Manchester Guardian, that the Glasgow barque Archibald Russell * had arrived in Melbourne after a voyage' begun on 20th November last year. She was more'than three months overdue on a trip whioh normally occupies ninety days or so. There have been more extraordinary oases, as witness that of the Amerioan clipper T. F. Oskee, which sailed for Now York from Hong Kong by way of tho Cape. , A typhoon drove her far out of her course, sourTy d«oimated tho crew, the^ skipper was helpless with rheumatism,' to trim the sails became almost impossible. Sho drifted for weeks, reached the latitudo of the Horn, and a couiso was set for tho ooast of Brazil. Eventually the T. F. Oakes was taken in tow by a tanker,, and arrived in New York harbour after ai voyage of over 200 days. Lever Brothers, of Port Sunlight, owned < the iron barque ,Lalla Rookh, which left Brisbane steering for the Straights of Magellan, which she should, have reached in under five weeks. Aotually, on account of gales and heavy seas, it was 100 days before Cap© Horn was seen. Topsails remained reefed for close on twenty weeks, and an attempt to make the Falkland Islands was frustrated by contrary winds. Lalla Rookh waa given up as lost, 92 guineas per cent., being refused for reinsurance. Coal for the galley was spent, and the only discovery of an old coffee mill whereby the , oorn. which formed the cargo could be ground, saved the crew from) starvation. She arrived after 330 daye in Falmouth, aboard tho ship being a young medical student who had embarked aa a passenger to get to Edinburgh for his lectures. As it turned oint the term was over before Lalla Rookh dropped anchor. Another vessel that' was greatly overdue was the' Stork. With £50,000 worth of furs aboard her, she left Port Charlton, Hudson Bay, on <19th September, 1904. She was compelled to winter in the ice, did not get free till August, 1905, and sailed up the Thames more than a year aftor. her voyage had begun.